Season 5 Ep 33 Listen Up Idiots!

Hello and welcome to the Ball Card Show, the sports podcast for The Sports Collector. I'm Jason Otero. I'm Gary Lomaster. Season 5, episode 33. It is fall. However, total drought. However, we've got a little bit of like a post-apocalyptic season happening in the Midwest. I called you yesterday and you were like, I'm in the middle of mowing the grass. And I felt like you were very thankful to have a break in the middle of mowing the grass because you were like, I'm mowing dust out here. Oh, I would mow and I would just hear the Book of Eli song in the background. I mean, crunch under every step. I'm like, what am I even mowing here? I'm mowing an hayride. My lawn looks a little shaggy, but it's not long. And I'm kind of in the same boat that you were. Until a neighbor does theirs. Oh, that's the key. I'm just probably chilling. On the cul-de-sac, the rules are once one person mows, it is generally expected that within a few days, it's your turn. And does everybody get mad at the person who does it initially? Well, you think it, you feel it. You don't want a bag of dog crap and sit on their porch? No, no, no. If somebody's retired and that's like their thing is their lawn, I'm fine with that. But the other working class people like us, no, I'm not letting that slide. Anyway, if you're not from the Midwest, you don't understand. We have to talk about the weather, whether it's interesting or not, and complain about it. So that's where we are with that. Also, we got to say it now, because if something really cool happens, I just want us to like plant the flag. Cincinnati Reds made the wild card in spectacularly unimpressive fashion. Well, they win the first two games in Milwaukee. They control their own destiny and they needed a pretty bad showing from the Mets in the last game of the afternoon to get in. So a little Francisco Lindor ground into a double play. And here we are in the Reds celebrated like they had the best record in baseball. The best part of this story is in the last 80 games, they were 40 and 40. Yeah, it was. And in the last spectacular, the last 80 games, Ellie looked as lost as he did the first half of last year. Oh, we had a good game last week against the Pirates. Well, he did hit for the cycle a few weeks ago and then he had a good game last week. Maybe he turns it on. Here's the thing with the Reds. Nobody wants to deal with them in a short series like we have against the Dodgers. Now we got to score some runs. But if you're the Dodgers, do you want to face Hunter Green, Andrew Abbott, right? And Nicola Dolo, right? That's one of the best front three in baseball. Yeah. They just say you can't kill us. That's the that's kind of the more cockroaches. And when you acknowledge it, then you're dangerous because you're not coming in cocky. You're just be like, yeah, we're here. I just loved all the like graphics with clinched like they did something. Well, the locker room, I'm all ticked off because I was watching that Brewers game, right? And I was like, I don't want to get killed again. And then the next thing I know, it's champagne. Yeah, man, it was Frank Cone. It was. We're in. I like how he said this is how you know he's a good coach. He was like, we're going to party, baby, for the next hour. He's getting to work already. I think he went a little more now. Anyway, some hobby news, a lot of things popping off in the last week. We want to jump into right away. This was a headline I found a little bit interesting. Interesting on both parties in this case. Yeah. Jake Paul is suing Heritage Auctions over a signed Jordan piece of the Bulls court. Now, it's it's not just signed. It's signed and it has like every inscription you could possibly dream of. Correct. Putting on there, which for Jordan, that's a big deal. Yes, a really big deal. But help me. You read through that as well. Help me understand what was it that Jake Paul was actually mad about? What was the reason for this lawsuit? And is this something that sets a precedent maybe with some of the larger buyers in this? Sure. Well, I'm going to give you the breakdown of what it was and then I'm going to give you my take on it and then you can feel free to laugh at my take or give your. I will. I feel so free. So here's what the item was. The signatures and the inscriptions are not in debate. Nobody is debating validity. They are triple certified. They're certified by Upper Deck, who Jordan has been exclusive with for 30 years. They are authenticated by PSA DNA and have been authenticated by Beckett. So there's no question. Real, real, real. Yeah. No question about the signatures whatsoever. What is in question is Heritage listed the item as being a piece of the Bulls floor from 1992 to 1996. Peak Bulls dynasty. Peak Bulls dynasty. What is in question is whether that floor is actually from more like 2001 to 2005. Jordan's wizard era. Now, what Jake Paul is alleging in his lawsuit is that Heritage did not give him the proper amount of time needed to verify their claims that the floor was from that earlier era. What is the dispute is Heritage is saying, well, it's the same floor, but it was resurfaced and repainted at some point. We don't know when that happened. My take on this is that Jake Paul, after buyer's fees, spent over $600,000 and then decided, I'm not really sure I want to pay $600,000. How can we get out of this without me burning every bridge I have and ability to buy this type of stuff in the future if I want it? That's my take on it. Both sides, Heritage probably was a little shady in the way they listed that. Here's what's important to note. Even the documentation that they provided with the item, one of the pieces of documentation, I believe the piece from PSA, indicates that they believe that the floor was from a later date. That was disclosed that one of the three things says that it was from a later date, which is why I think it's more Jake Paul going, Do I really want to drop 620 on this? I think you and I underestimate what wealth in 2025 looks like. Maybe. Because in our minds, you could say, if I had $5 million, I don't need to think about much ever again. And that could be true. But when you talk about the type of money people like Jake Paul are generating, the revenue, I don't think it matters to him if it was $400,000 or $600,000. Now I'm not saying all people with money don't even have to think about expenses. A lot of times the rich people are cheap people. Unless you were in a windfall of cash from being a goofy kid on YouTube and turn it into $100 million price fights. I think what happened was this is a flex. He would have paid $700,000. He may have paid $800,000 at the auction for it, but he wanted it to be as cool as he said it was. And when Heritage communicated that this is from this era, that's the only error in this whole transaction. Correct. Then he probably sees the PSA, everything gets in and he's saying, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, hold on a minute. Hold on a minute. Why is there a discrepancy between the two of these? Now, the interesting thing in this story to me was it looks like that the Paul representation already secured a protective order. Well, because Heritage was saying was if you don't pay by this date, you don't get the item and it will go back up for auction. And that's what they filed an injunction to start with so that that couldn't happen. Then they could proceed with the legal case. So it could be that he just has enough money to not only buy that at that price, but say screw you, hire an attorney to make sure that it's legit. And if it is, he's probably happy with it. We'll see what happens. I don't see this as being expensive enough for him to like freak out about, um, I guess not freak out, but I don't think it's a cost issue. He's also bought multiple things and gotten multiple headlines in this hobby for getting duped and buying fake stuff. Probably the reason though, that he would be like heritage to now I'll say this. I was surprised to see that name involved and it likely it is more believable that they were not trying to pull one over. But the last thing you need in the memorabilia space right now is another Jersey. That's not a Jersey and other court piece. That's not the right court piece. And I'll be honest, if I'm buying that kind of Jordan stuff and I find out it's as he was not on the team, well, that would suck again. I think the issue is not that the floor itself wasn't stood on by Michael Jordan. It's that the paint that was on top of the floor might not have been stood on by Michael Jordan. The court, what heritage is saying is the court was the same court for 30 years. It was just resurfaced and you're mad that the paint wasn't stood on by Michael Jordan. I mean, that's 600 grand. I would have some questions. Maybe, uh, interesting to see how that one plays out. Uh, up next tops update. When does that drop right around the corner in it? Uh, very soon. Yeah. Very soon. Tops update baseball announced that the golden mirror super short prints will be autographed with gold ink in this release. I think that is, or is it a variation? Some of them? I don't know yet. Interesting. Based off of what I was reading, I think it would make, if they decided to make all of them autos, that would be a good way to juice update. Sure. And I mean, it's, it's the question is how many cases are they making? Cause they're technically case hits. There's one to a case. So yeah. Yeah. It'd be interesting to see how that, uh, plays out. It is a cool idea. Um, it also, one of the complaints that people have about the gold mirrors is there's, unless you look at the back of the card, you don't know that it's a gold mirror. And a lot of them, the images are unique enough that you kind of do a double take. However, tops has also included a lot more like unique Gatorade bath type images on regular cards. So I imagine a lot of these gold mirrors have been tossed out or stuck in commons boxes. Well, that's the only thing I'm sad about not being able to snipe them as easily in the future. I think putting quality hits, if the prices are going up with wax, then the more attainable products need to have chases in them that are a big hit. I think it is good for the narrative of what's being released now for people to buy a box for a hundred, 150 bucks, maybe 200. Um, and then hit something cool out of it or pull them out of a blaster. I think that still matters. And if there has to be a level of attainability in the hobby, especially in a year where you see some softening in the ultra modern market, especially with football right now and basketball, and then you see in the greats and goats picking up fanatics also just tops Chrome this year was brutal because they so drastically expanded the rookie checklist. And then you're getting your guaranteed auto is a guy who had three major league at bats and we'll probably never have another one. And the box costs $300, $275. Now I haven't seen it yet, but have you seen a release checklist for Bowman? You football? Uh, not a checklist, but the design is awesome. The design's awesome. But my concern is it would be very easy for them to do the exact same thing with the product. They've been doing that. If it's, if it is worse, it's really going to matter whose autos are in there. Well, they'll have the good autos, but they're going to have a ton of. Yeah. Call me yesterday, buddy that has done some purchasing of like wax of like maybe a quick flip, the right stuff. Uh, and they were, they had a buddy reach out to them about, you, you, you got to get this tops Chrome cases. And it was, this was the wrong year to do that. Like a lot of LCSs were stuck with them. They couldn't move enough. Oh yeah. Um, talking to an LCS owner yesterday, talking about how he's just stuck with pops Chrome and, uh, trying to decide when to take the loss. You like how we just took a really positive thing from fanatics and tops and turned it into what we do. All we are grumpy old negative men by the way. Oh yeah. That's, that's what our comments tell us. Yeah. So, well, I'm not going to stop now. I've got more good news. If you, uh, well, it's not good news. All right. There was a tops update show. Hey Otani rookie that had a big story a couple of years ago. We talked about it in the pod audio version, uh, pride season two or three up as a 2018 tops update independence day. Um, show Hey Otani number to 76. It is number 64 of 76 specific. So this card was sold by someone who had very clear images of the card. And then the next thing we know the card looks way more centered. Yeah. It's it's, and it's in a slab and a slab and it's a PSA nine. Uh, yeah. And it was way more centered and the bit of whiting that was in that top right corner wasn't there anymore. So many collectors believed and posted and reached out to anybody at PSA that would listen and say, Hey, this is a trim card and this is too big and too iconic of a card for you to know that this is a trim card and still be okay. Starting this. Yes. Well, luckily since that moment, PSA has been, you know, just walking out their integrity in front of all of us and has not stooped to those of, by the way, price hike and a longer turnaround time right now. Uh, that's coming in just a moment. Since then we have had a another submission of this card that has clearly been spoken about same card. The people that have a voice in the hobby have tagged people in PSA. They have heard about it and yet still this card was graded. And the funny thing to me is that it was resubbed and now it's an eight. It went down. Nobody seems to care that something else clearly has happened with the card. Yeah. Very much a trim card. And you remember how harsh they were when that was the, if any card has been altered, unless it's a really expensive one. Yeah. It's just them rattling sabers. We, we, so we have this happen this week and then another card was recently graded. Um, that was a joke and it's one of the most expensive cards to attain in the entire hobby. The card's not a joke. No, the card's not a great, but the grade is a joke. So this is a, and I will put a picture of the card on the screen so that you can see what we are talking about that on our socials too. Okay. I keep forgetting to tell you about it. Perfect. I will, I will put that on the screen. Uh, here's the issue. It's a 1952 Mickey Mantle. One of, if not the most iconic baseball cards of all time. One of the most valuable cards of all time. The card is severe, it's a PSA 8, okay? Go read what that means and then understand that PSA grades vintage way harder than they do ultra-modern. And this card got an 8. This card is severely diamond cut. I would say it's diamond cut at a minimum of 10. Explain that to people that don't know what that means. So diamond cut means that it is shaped properly. However, the sheet was angled slightly. So the border at the top is wider than the border at the bottom. This was a very notorious thing that happened with 1986 Tops football. That set is notorious for diamond cutting. This card is diamond cut at a minimum of 10 to 12 degrees. It might be close to 15 degrees. Additionally, along the bottom right, the card you'll see on the screen, you'll see the black border that's there. On the bottom right, if you zoom in on the image of this card, there is severe print bleed on that border. It bleeds from black to yellow hard. This card is a 5, maybe a 6. The difference in value between a 5 and an 8 is damn near 7 figures. Either PSA just let one fall through the cracks, which I can't imagine on this type of a card. I imagine when this card gets submitted ever that it goes to their most senior graders. Or Nat Turner owed somebody a favor. One of the two things. Yeah, that's a tough one because of how much of a difference in value you're talking on that card. Massive. If somebody buys that card based on the flip, they are throwing money. You know who would buy that card? Jake Paul? Wondershine. Oh yeah, Wondershine would buy that card. So this brings up a good question because this is changing significantly. This is one of the biggest differences I've noticed between vintage collectors and modern ultra modern. Vintage collectors really do care about presentation. Experienced vintage people would look at that and be like, that's such a cool card. How did that get an 8? Not knocking the card, blah, blah, blah. But they with their own eyes will say, 8? Question mark? So a vintage collector will have to decide that buys big cards like this, or maybe they invest. This is the type of card you invest. It's a long hold, right? It's an 8. Is it the grade that you're buying or is it the card? And this is going to be interesting to see that. I'm sure this card will move and somebody will post something about it, but when it does, what profile spent the money on the card? Yeah, I don't even know what the asking price on the card is. It's over a milli. 1.4 almost. Yeah. So where do you go PSA? Along those lines, they're raising their prices and turnaround times. If you're just now hearing this the first time, you just haven't been listening. This was announced like a week and a half ago. Yeah. And I've gotten chuckles out of all the folks who weren't here the last time this happened, just pulling their hair out. Why would PSA do this? What are they thinking? I'll tell you exactly what they're thinking. They're getting too damn many cards and they want it to slow down. That's all this is. Stop sending us stuff. Oh, you won't listen. Now it's going to cost you more and take longer. Please stop sending us stuff. Yeah. What do you think is being sent off now? I mean, when we had this wave and COVID, it was all the base rookie stuff. It's happening again. That's exactly what's happening. And we're seeing it because people are trying to sell it to us and they're trying to sell us their PSA 8 paper, Jaden Daniels. I'll tell you. Sunday show, the stuff walking up, there was so much more ultra modern football walking up where there was a look of desperation in their eyes. And you could tell, especially like, I don't want to say it. Like if I was a teenage kid and I had the money as a teenager to be in the hobby actively and go to shows, I'd be doing the same thing. But you could tell that you were the 15th table they've been to. You show them what's been happening with the market of that player. They're convinced a month ago when they opened the pack that they had a $70 card and it's 25 bucks right now. And you have to offer them below that, which we'll talk about how margins work here in a minute too. But yeah, you're definitely seeing that happen. So yeah, some interesting things happening in the PSA world now, but if you're wondering why that price increase and delay and turn times is happening, that's why. There is literally no other reason. They want you to stop sending them stuff right now so they can get caught up. Here's what I like about that. Whenever these things happen, it has to, I think it's more of a trickle than an obvious redirection, but there has to be an uptick at some point with SGC a little bit, even though they're trying to throttle that too. Beckett still has an opportunity. Please put the right person in there and cast the vision for that, unless they're just content. I don't think people realize just how big their authentication market is on the member. They're still far and away. Well, and they're also huge in the TCG world. A black label 10 in the TCG world is massive. Oh yeah. Yep. Yep. Okay. I'm excited to do this. Our first update calculation, football flip 2025. If you don't know, there's an episode a few weeks back title football flip 2025. Gary and I for years have been doing something similar to this, where we will build out a team based off of a fictitious budget. We'll select our players, rookie cards and PSA tens. We'll track the growth or fall of their market throughout the season. And then at the end of the year, we crown a winner. The loser has to buy the card that has taken the highest gain for the winner at current market value. Yes. This could be, I don't think anything crazy, but I would say like on the upside, it could be a five, six or $700 card. Yeah. So it's enough to make me nervous here. I'm going to be trying to buy with margin, which we'll talk about again later. Let's give people an update. Football flip 2025. Gary is up. I am down. Yep. Although I do have to use an IR spot. Yep. So here we go. Uh, yeah, I'm up 11%. I'll give you my players in case you didn't hear this, uh, seven weeks ago when we started this, uh, my quarterback was Justin Fields. And the card that I picked was his national treasures, a booklet RPA out of 99. Uh, when I started this, that carpet is $184. It is now $170 card. So that one I'm down a little bit on next card was Jameer Gibbs, his select club level zebra in a PSA 10. That one is up. It was four Oh eight prior. Now it is a four 50 Dalton. Kincaid was my tight end. I had his prison blue ice rookie of 99 and a PSA 10. It is up $1 from one 25 to one 26. Um, my wide receivers CD lamb, 2020 prism silver, just the true silver PSA 10. It is up from 209 to two 40. Next receiver will be who I'm using an IR spot on because he got his knee blown out this week. And that was Malik neighbors, his true prism still up though, one 90 to two 10. And last but not least, Justin Jefferson's blue wave prism rookie out of one 99 in a PSA 10, three 30. When we started this, it's now up to four Oh eight. So that's the biggest winner, right? 25%. Yes, that is the biggest winner. And then, uh, my total starting out of a $1,500 budget was 1446. I'm now sitting at 16 Oh four. However, Malik neighbors will now be coming off of my roster rule update. Just so you guys remember, we have to use the same budget as we had preseason for that player. It can't be can't be over anything over that. So I went with Puka Nakua, his, um, true blue wave prism rookie PSA 10. It's $150 average on the last three. Puka is a freaking dog. Yeah, he has. Did you realize he has twice the number of receptions of the next guy in the league and receiving 40 some catches in the workhorse? Yeah. All right. I am down, but I'll just go ahead and cut to the chase. I'm down 1.5%. So it's, it's not I'm holding right. A couple of these names I'm nervous about. And two of these don't have a recent sale or they just have one at the same price right around the beginning of the season. Uh, CJ Stroud was my big pick. I still think there's hope he looked a little bit better this week. If they get strained together a few weeks of him bombing those, getting those 300 yard games, I won't be surprised. But, um, if that bounces back up, I did the prism silver rookie in a PSA 10. It averaged about 400. I looked back. I was a little aggressive if I'd have taken in more data, maybe a little lighter, but still close to 400. It's about a $300 card right now. Um, there's a spread. Whenever somebody moves down, there's a spread. There's going to be one that goes low. And then there's usually like, Oh, that's, you know, the outlier. And then the boom, trying to look at the average of the last four or five. That's what I'm trying to do. So that's down 25%. That really hurt me. Uh, running back B. John Robinson, select XRC PSA 10. Now I think this is one of the smarter picks for cards, uh, to, to invest in, um, that's up significantly. Uh, I went from one 33 average to a one 85 average, 30%. That's a solid month. They're, uh, almost makes up for the CJ loss, uh, Jamar chase. Somehow the value has gone up 10 bucks on that. A PSA 10 silver rookie, one 95 to floating around two or five. I think there was a two 10 comp, but there was one like one 80. So I'm calling it two or five is, um, we're right there. Uh, Roma dunes, a, uh, silver autograph, PSA 10. Not many of these have sold, but it has gone up from about 210 bucks. I think that one has a chance to really do well for you. I mean, B John Rome. And then if CJ can, I think CJ's cause that CJ's silver 10 was an $800 card. When he was CJ, it just held steady. You'd be killing me. Oh yeah. Yeah. I think, I think his card could be, if it's a 300 now it could see 500 by the end of the year. I don't think it's going to get to 800 bucks again, unless, well, they just traded a tackle away too. Yeah. I was like, what? Um, okay. Uh, DK Metcalf contenders, optic, rookie ticket, autograph, teal to one 49. That long title is all you need to know. I'm a little nervous that I won't see any gains, but I may not see losses because it won't sell because it hasn't sold. Um, he is so collected though, that I'll be shocked if there's not something that moves or somebody unloading him. I mean, that could come back to bite me too. And then finally, Sam Laporta, um, it looks like it had one sale since the season started the, uh, prism blue ice rookie to 99 and a PSA 10 was two 75 and has a recent sale at two 70. So it fell off five bucks. Yeah. He's down. He's down. And I think he's more down than those numbers and what that indicates. Yeah. But the lions have a way of figuring things out and they've got the right coaching for that. So three and one now I have turned 1453 into 1431. So it could have been way worse. You had two really nice gainers there that made up for your CJ pick and your CJ pick could turn around. So we will update this every quarter of the football season. So you're going to get this about every four and a half to five weeks during the season to see where we're at. Um, losing Malik really hurt because again, he was getting all the targets in New York, but here we are. Let's roll into picks, picks, but I got to tell you guys, I got to tell you guys, the thing about a heater, the thing about a heater is that they can't stay hot forever. Yeah, but it was a fun ride. Uh, this week I was annihilated. Gary went four one. I went one and four and we had three of the same picks. Um, yeah, it was, how was that possible? Because the one that we shared, Oh yeah. Two differences. Yeah. I had two different ones. Yes. Okay. We, uh, we had, uh, it was, it was real, real interesting. The two that we differed on, um, Falcons. Uh, I picked the Falcons and, uh, Jason couldn't bring himself to do that after that. And, uh, I picked the chiefs who, as soon as they had a receiver who could take the top off of defense, all of a sudden looked like the chiefs again. Also, I think I hate doing this because it, nobody ever believes you when you say it's cause they're like the most offended crowd when you say it. But the Ravens are the team that everybody expects. Like every time they're getting ready to play, everybody's like, Oh, they're about to put it on them. And it just doesn't happen as often. Like it's so infrequently happens that how long are we going to keep them in that conversation? Here's an interesting team. But this is a, this is something that I think we have to address. One of you can't, both of these things can't be true at the same time. Lamar Jackson has a hamstring injury. He sure didn't look hurt on the sideline. He sure looked like he was pouting on the sideline. Oh, that's even worse. He didn't look frustrated. He looked like he was pouting. I think my hamstring hurts today. Um, yeah. Uh, is it time for us to start having the conversation? Lamar Jackson might be the James Harden of the NFL. Like really good when it doesn't matter all that much. Well, we took some heat when we talked about, because we can't say the chiefs are back and also say that, well, the Ravens just got a, you know, I mean, like they didn't look good. Yeah. When we give takes on football stuff here too. Um, this is driving me nuts. I gotta, yeah, you're good. And while you're giving this take, I'm going to pick the games we're going to pick this week. Cause we never did that. When, um, when you look at, um, the comment we made about Baker last week, where we're, we said, I don't know if there's another quarterback I'd rather have right now in this moment in that situation, that situation. And then the people that wanted to argue with us just listed guys that throw a bunch of touchdowns. And we're saying right now in this moment. And I think that's the key because somebody went back and gave a stat about, well, over the last 15, blah, blah, blah. We're not, we're talking about right now. And what we can say, like the bills conversation, I love Josh Allen. He's probably my favorite quarterback to watch in the league right now. But time and time again, in that last minute drive, the bills fans have said it, everyone watching has said it not the most clutch. Does he have the talent and capacity and intelligence and team and program? Yes. But when it doesn't happen, that that's a counter to what we're talking about. Yes. But when it doesn't happen, that that's a counter argument to our point. Absolutely. You know, uh, Alan Mahomes, Lamar golf. I'm just trying to think of all the other names that were presented to us. But like at some point with the Lamar thing, you got to look at the ones that we lost. What games were they? What games did the Ravens lose? How the ones where they were down, they didn't make the comeback. So I think it's a little interesting what's happening over in Baltimore for sure. Um, but it, it is definitely a team that always appears to be dangerous and is. dangerous. Yes, man. I don't know if it's the schedule. I don't know what's going on, but it seemed off. Um, and my homes never gets worse as the season goes on. I've never seen, he starts to figure out what his team is doing. What do I have to work with? Yes. And how do I need to, he's very, very adaptable to what the situation is, which is a trait of Andy Reed too. It's not surprising that that has passed into my home before we get into this, the picks here. Yeah, I've got to say, watch the dolphins last night. They looked a little more like a functional team. And then Tyreek, who's been pouting all season, gets fired up and you could tell that he figured out, I love this game and he's hyping the whole team up. And then he decided to add one of the worst knee injuries I've seen. It was awful. Uh, from what we know, it's dislocated, tendons are torn. It's all blown. I mean, that's the type of injury they got to check that artery in the knee to make sure his leg was pointing in the wrong direction from the knee down. But the way that he won, he had to be in tons of pain to the way he was waving everybody off the field. There's a part of me what's like, was he just drinking up that last moment? And there's a possibility of that at his age and when his entire game is based on speed. Yeah, that might be it, but probably a stubborn enough person where until he tries, he's not going to know. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. But it was sad to see, like I was watching the other game because as a Bengals fan, I enjoy self-flagellation. So, um, you texted me and said, man, Tyree's knee and I went and saw the footage of it and it was like, oh my God, it was bad, bad, uh, little update on the total scores for the season. Now, Gary closed the gap a lot this week with that. I'm still 27 and 15. Gary's 23 and 19. Do those numbers check out? They do. Okay. So now we've got five games this week to pick. Um, Jason has no idea what they are. He had no more of a second for them. Neither did I, because as we were prepping this other than selecting them, we were going to select these and then I realized we never did. So let's start with one that I think is a very interesting one. Raiders at Colts Colts as well. Uh, the Colts should have beat the Rams. They, they, they outplayed the team and then they just add my Mitchell, like literally dropped the ball, have one of the best plays you'll see a receiver make this year. And then got excited and tried to celebrate going to the ends of the fumbled it out the back. One of the most infuriating things to watch. And then late in the game, Jonathan Taylor has an electric 46 yard touchdown run called back by a hold from Adonai Mitchell that had no impact on the play whatsoever. Those are the ones I just, I mean, you're in the trenches. You don't see everything going on around you, but those mistakes really can points off the board. I would agree. Uh, giants at saints, the Jackson dart led giants. What do we, uh, what do we think there? They got their first win in Jackson darts. First start. I'm going to go with the giants on this one. I'm going to go with the saints. Good. Spencer Rattler showing me a little bit. I don't necessarily like it, but he's showing me a little bit like he's competitive. He does not make a mistake and it's in the superdome. So I'm going to go saints there. Well, let's go, uh, your team versus the Jekyll and Hyde team of the NFL so far this year, Miami at Carolina, no Tyreek. I think the dolphin, listen, I don't care what anyone says to me. Darren Waller was an immediate impact on that offense. Well, at whatever, did he catch two touchdowns? Yes. People don't realize the type of specimen he is. If he could, if he could shed a block, there's not like on size and a red zone, there's not too many people that are going to be able to lock that down. Um, if it's placed, if it's placed, we'll not play a man to man, they can, but to, I had some creative throws that I haven't seen all season, like threading the needle a little bit. I think there was just a different level of energy. And I think Carolina is bad as the dolphins are. Carolina is bad, but without the talent, Miami is bad with more talent. So I assume you're taking your team here for the first time all season, only because I saw some glimmers of hope with the Monday night when it's your short week. I got to go to the fins on this one. I will be going with the Panthers on this one. So we've got two disbelief in Miami or that they did what they did a couple of weeks ago. I think the loss of Tua a little loss of Tyreek, I mean, is going to have catastrophic effects on that offense. Um, I think that loss is not overcomable in any real way. The way that you made that. So such a confident take. Yeah. And if I don't care if it's the dolphins, that's the one I hope you lose. All right, last one. We'll get two to go. What are you talking about? Commanders at Chargers. Both teams keep doing commanders every week. Well, because it's an interesting game. That's why Jane Daniels should be back this week. Chargers lost a game that was baffling that they lost any injuries of the Chargers. I'm unaware of. No, other than nausea being out for the year that torn Achilles, but he wasn't a main call. Anyway, Hampton had his first really good game as a pro, but the commanders get Jane Daniels back. So which is the real commanders? It's in LA. Boy, this is a tough one. Yeah. Is this the hardest one to match up? Probably. Um, yeah. The next one is, you know, go first. I've been going first every time. That's fine. I'm going to take the Chargers. That's what I was going to say is, yeah, I'm going to take the Chargers in this one. Uh, I think, I think it's close, but I think it's a long trip across the across the pond there. Yep. Um, last one is the second most interesting zero ponds being crossed by the way. Zero ponds being crossed. I mean, many ponds being crossed, but not the big one, not the pond Texans at Ravens, a battle of two one and three teams that nobody thought would be one and three Lamar. If Lamar comes back and plays in this game, I think it will mar his image with his own team. So I don't think he plays this week. He took himself out of a game that they were getting smoked in. The trainers didn't take him out. Has he done this before? And there, no, that's what makes it a little bit less believable. Well, yes. And no, like a couple of years ago, remember they were in a tight playoff race and he was like, he wanted a contract. So he was like, I'm not risking it. And the team doctors were like, you could probably play. And he's like, yeah, maybe I don't know. Okay. But the Texans are bad. Yeah. But are the Baltimore Ravens? It's in Baltimore. I'm going with the Texans upset. Me too. That was, that was what my pick was too. Wow. Yeah. If Lamar doesn't play Cooper rushing and we've only got two different ones here. Yep. Same as last week. Saints. No, I like the way that's working. Cause it's, it's going to keep things tight. A little tighter. Yes. All right. Those are our picks for the week. Now, those of you that have been going off of what I've said, because you've been making so much money last week was a rough one for me. Don't know if we get, I don't know if we get off the Schneid here. We'll see what happens. Okay. Instead of a value box, Gary and I are just going to rant for a few minutes. This is going to feel a little more like angsty, the old school podcast for the next few minutes, because um, we love doing the value box. Uh, but sometimes it's just a little more fun to have an organic conversation without talking each other up a whole lot about it and letting each other rip. Well, and we love doing the value box because one of the things that we enjoy the most is giving you guys stuff that is actionable. And believe it or not, we put a lot of thought and effort into those segments. And our hope is that it helps you in your either collecting journey, or your journey as a dealer so that you can increase your profits and get more out of this hobby. So when we get, we're going old school, right? You can do it. I just don't want to. And some of you guys can be like, I need to go listen to some of these little episodes. Yes, but we're on video here. And we're being published to like eight platforms. When we have to see and hear. Idiots say things with their full chest that they obviously have no clue about. It's infuriating. And I don't mind people disagreeing with you can disagree with us on things that are matters of opinion. And you could be a jerk disagreeing with us. That's fine. But when we are talking about things that are factual in basis, and you just come and you say something with your full chest, as if you have any semblance of a clue what you're talking about, you can expect us to fire back. And boy, this week we fired back a little bit. I think I get annoyed with it. But when I get to the point where like, we're going to talk about it, I don't care. It's when I noticed that it's a narrative that's like starting to gain some traction that's like not correct. And you guys will notice every single time we rip on somebody without exception. It is someone that's using a platform or somebody that's giving information that only harms people in the space and people collecting in the space and people selling in the space. It's bad for the hobby in our opinion. That's when we say something. It's not because somebody commented and got under our ruffles, which that happens. Gary left scorched earth on TikTok. Some dude must do this so much that he set up as a profile where you can't do replies videos. So he's a coward for one. So Gary copied and pasted the screenshot. He just made his own video, which is like the most Gen X thing ever. But here we are. So here's the bigger conversation. The number one thing without question, I would say grading is probably number two that we had talked about. But the number one thing people ask us questions, want us to talk about is buying. Buying right. Buying with percentage. How do you buy if you're a dealer? How do you buy for your PC? How do you buy for flipping eBay, whatnot? And we spend so much time talking about that. But one thing, three full weeks seems really clear to me. You know what that is? What's that? People can't do math. Also, I think we have people in this hobby that have never purchased anything besides a card in their entire life. They're just out in the ether living amongst the trees without having ever owned a single item ever. They've never collected anything, bought anything, sold anything. They parachuted into TikTok. They parachuted into YouTube and said, you know what? Everyone should be able to sell their cards at a hundred percent or damn near close to it. And if you don't, if you don't, you are what's wrong with the hobby. You are taking the hobby down. You are a comp killer. Comp killer. It's a race to the bottom. These greedy sons of guns that just set up and rake in money all day long. It is mind-blowing. So in a general sense, the quick cliff notes version, a lot of people in this hobby believe that when they have cards in their possession and they go to somebody that has a business buying and selling cards, whether they set up at shows, have an LCS, whatever, maybe it's a repacker that they reach out to and hit up their discord, whatever it is that the only reasonable solution when you're selling cards is to get full value on that transaction. Because if not, it will hurt the hobby. And here's what we would like to explain to you. We want to explain to you words like wholesale. We want to talk about words like margin. We want to talk about things like addition and subtraction. We want to talk about bills. We'd like to talk about things like expenses. Now, if you're lost already, then this is really going to blow your mind. Might need to pull out a phone, take an audio note of this, and then try to spell it later. Volatility. It's a big word. You might want to look into it. We're going to talk about seasons and how markets soften and how they pick up. And then we're going to talk about a word that you're very unfamiliar with if all you're doing is walking up to a table and expecting 100%. That word is spelled out W-O-R-K. Some people refer to it as work. It's labor. It's a time commitment. It is an expense of resource that you feel you shouldn't have to make, but everyone else should so that you can get 100%. Did I miss anything? No, I think you really drilled in there. I like it. So we don't have to do this as sarcastically through this whole bit, but there is a little bit of annoyance that you're going to catch throughout the whole thing. The first thing that I want to answer is, what is wholesale? What does that mean when somebody says wholesale? And what does wholesale mean in an LCS? What does it mean in a card show? And what does it mean for repackers? Just three examples we can quickly- Let's start with an LCS because I think- In a basic sense though, because I think some people don't even understand what the word wholesale means. Maybe they think it meant the wholesale is 100%. And so maybe it's just a simple mistake, but- Jason, we won't be as sarcastic. Also, Jason, pure sarcasm. At an LCS, let's use that because I think that that's probably outside of- You're already too far and I'm not being sarcastic. What does the word wholesale mean for people? Wholesale means a vendor buys something at a reduced cost and then sells it at retail, which is the marked up cost. Since we're the only ones doing this, I just want to be sure. When you take a car in, they give you what's called a trade-in value. But if they give me 100% of trade-in value, did they still wholesale the car? Yes. Why is that, Gary? Because there's a difference between wholesale and retail value. So when they took that car in on trade, they wanted to make money off of my- Shocking, I know. And the difference in wholesale and retail value assumes a few things. It assumes that the retailer who is selling a car to an end user has expenses. It assumes that that retailer also has target profit margins so that they can maintain a business where you have some place to go and sell your car to- Wait, they're trying to make money off of my car? Absolutely. And it's going in their pocket? Yeah. And it's paying their bills? Yeah. We got to do something about this. Well, you can. You can sell it yourself. You can spend money to advertise it. Well, I don't know how to do all that. You can clean it and make sure that it's mechanically up to snuff and put money into it- Well, that's going to take a lot of time. I'm not a mechanic. You can change the threaded bare tires and put fresh tires on it for $1,000. I've changed one flat in my life. You mean there's things you don't know how to do in order to retail the car? Yeah, but I brought you a car. You need cars. It's car lot. You see what we're driving at here? We want to make sure that you guys understand that we're just not a couple of schlubs who are just raking money in hand over fist, and neither is any other dealer that's out here grinding things out. Even the guys that are selling cards for a half a million dollars to the owners of the Commanders, their margin percentages look very similar to ours. The numbers are just bigger. Also, their expenses are much bigger. So when you go into your LCS, I think that probably 75% of the wax that is purchased probably is purchased through an LCS, whether that's an LCS online, like Dave & Adams or Blowout, those are considered LCS. If you're buying a whole box. People are gonna be like, I'd break way more in breaks. That's what we're talking about. Breaks are a different ballgame, but even then, this comes into play. If you're ripping actual wax, that person you bought it from bought it from someone else. Either they have a direct account with Fanatics or Panini or Upper Deck, or they're buying it from a third-party distributor, or they're buying it from another LCS through different platforms that exist for that. I'm not gonna spread the names of those platforms. If you know what they are, cool. If you don't, you don't need to. You're not a dealer. If you did, you'd know. Those things exist. They buy those to resell them. Now, here was the comment that really got under my skin, the idea that if you are buying something at less than its full value, you are driving the market down. Wholesale transactions are not comps. Let me spell this out, for those of you that can't spell volatility. What that means is when you walk into your LCS, every single shop with a Fanatics direct account, those boxes for $300, wait for it, cost the owner less than $300. But you are gonna pay $300 to get the box. I don't wanna overcomplicate this. You're not gonna look at that dealer and say, well, I know you paid $240 for this box when you bought the case, so I'm only gonna pay you $240. That dealer's gonna laugh at you and tell you to leave and not come back to their shop. This is how wholesale works. Also at the LCS, when you walk in to sell your cards to them, I don't wanna hear. I don't believe you if you're telling me your LCS is paying you 100%. Yeah, you're lying. The only exception to that would be you are such a degenerate that you're gonna spend 5K with them in the store on wax. So sure, you're just gonna keep opening boxes. There's a possibility they would say, I'll give you 100% on your hits. Yeah, trade value against our stickers here. So that's how wholesale works. That applies to singles as well. If you walk into your LCS, I see people say all the time that LCSs are ripping people off. Here's something that's very important to understand about this specific business, the trading card and sports card and TCG world. Until COVID, maybe a tiny little window before COVID, but until COVID, the norm was for dealers to pay 50, maybe 60% of the full value of a card. It's not an exaggeration. No, that was the norm. Go look at an old Beckett magazine. Look at Beckett High and Beckett Low. It was usually half, and then dealers paid a little bit less than Beckett Low. Go look at sneakers right now, coins right now, comics right now, collectibles. Every single one of these, the card market is demanding a higher purchase premium wholesale on singles or collectibles than any of those spaces are. And it's not remotely close. Now, is that necessarily in and of itself a terrible thing? No, no, no, no, no, no, no. However, understand that you're already getting a bigger premium than in any other space. So to act like somebody buying something to resell it to an end user kills comps, is asinine. Also, know your audience when you say things with your whole chest. We are full-time dealers. This is what we do to pay our bills. The only differences between us and an LCS is where you buy from us at and what our expense base is. One thing to be really clear about too, because the ones that are actually saying this are playing dumb, is what it is. Because I know some of you that say this and you walked up to my table, you ain't offering 100% on anything I have, not one time. And the other thing I wanna say is some of you just don't know how to look up the value of your cards and somebody has been telling you that they're paying you 90%. But let me, I'm gonna do some numbers here. So if you're smart, you don't need to listen. But if you're one of our special friends that's just commenting on a regular basis, listen close here. If somebody pulls up Card Ladder and they tell you I'm paying 90% and you have a card that is sold for $100, $70, $100, and $100, Gary and I are gonna tell you that card's worth about 100 bucks. 70's probably an outlier, maybe 95. Accurate? The person that's paying you 90% that is profitable, is either A, selling the card for 120%, what's their margin? Do the math on that real quick for me. Great for you. Or they're going off of that 70 and offering you 90% of that and you just landed them a 63% margin on the card. But you're walking away happy because they used the words 90% with you. At the end of the day, the math does not check out. You wanna talk about, let's play a scenario here. Sure. The scenario is everyone starts, everyone starts paying 100% of value. We could call it 95%. So just for perspective, if Gary and I have a show where we have done really well sourcing and we're at 30% gross margins, right? That means we got everything at 70% on average that's in the showcase. And we sold it at 100%. Well, yes. My point is we were at best net 25. At best. Likely 20%, but there's times at a 70% margin, I'm at 18 to 20% net. Like those of you saying 100% aren't offering 100% ever on the singles. Right. Now the people I think are most affected by this are people who have been lied to and breaks and repacks on the value of cards. They got in it. The first day somebody said, oh my gosh, this card's worth 500 bucks. And they looked over the spouse and said, I only spent 200 on this break. It's worth 500 bucks. I'm going to do another one the next day. Hey, this card's worth 900 bucks. I only spent 400 bucks on it. This is great. And then two weeks later, all the cards show up and you are down on value. You are down big. Then you go into a show where somebody shows you how to actually look up the value that people have paid for cards. And you just can't believe that that person that was just giving away money to you was maybe dishonest. It's got to be the dealer. It's got to be the software they're using. It's got to be this. The reality is a lot of you got upside down on this stuff and you don't know how to comp so you're demanding 100% to make up for your losses. And if you're emotionally in that place, there is a place that will help you. No sarcasm here. Collector's MD is somebody we've talked about before. If you're that down, where it is just overwhelming and there's pressure, there are other people dealing with the exact same thing that you are. And I think sometimes that 100% frustration is coming from a place of playing catch up rather than collecting. Well, and let's play out the scenario. Okay. Everybody pays 100%. So here's where this all falls apart. Let's start with us. What happens to us if we start paying 100%? So if I start paying 100%, I can no longer pay my bills. Okay. How long would it take for you to cycle through that inventory? Well, if everybody was paying 100%, I would cycle through the inventory but then I would have to turn around and spend that money at 100% to replace it. I would be out of business in a few months. Yeah. I think it would be quicker than that. And here's why. Yeah. When everyone has to pay 100% for carts, the people going and buying at shows, how long before shows are dead? Oh yeah, no. Because why not? Because then it's just eBay, right? Yeah. And now you can't source anywhere. Like eBay's dead because you're netting 87%. If you are as cheap as possible on eBay, unless you're into the really big carts. Yeah. So you're at 87 already and you paid 100, you're losing 13%. I can't do that for very long. Nope. If shows were affected by this, the dealers that set up, the ones that are set up with new inventory every time you go there, that's Gary and I, buying every week, going through tens of thousands of dollars of inventory, every week, cycling stuff through, those dealers are not gonna be at the show anymore. No. And your shows are gonna be filled with people who have been ripping retail and hobby, and they wanna get some of their money back. And there's nothing wrong with that, but now you've lost a huge portion of the market, and even more importantly, a huge portion of inventory that exists and circulates in the market. The market cap would change. What's the next thing that would be affected by this? LCSs would no longer exist because the margins on WAX aren't strong enough to pay the bills. They used to be. They used to be. They used to be, but now that Fanatics does these things where you get an order, hey, I want five cases. We'll give you two. Then you circle back a month or two later. Hey, can I get three more of those cases like I was wanting? Yeah, no problem. It costs 30% more now. And the direct-to-consumer purchase per box is about the same. Also, if you want those three more, we're gonna need you to buy five cases of this stuff that's never gonna sell, so that next year you're guaranteed at least one case. So the WAX margins, you might think on any individual box, LCS is making a 30% margin. They might be, but when every other factor is brought into play, they might be making 10%. We have an LCS in the Central Ohio area. Gorgeous, awesome, state-of-the-art, super popular. You're gonna see it everywhere. Yeah. And we don't know for a fact the numbers. That's not our business, but I will be shocked if it isn't, at the minimum, 40K, and at the top end, 60 to 70K a month just to keep the lights on, employees paid, Fanatics happy, and all that. So these people that are gonna be paying you 100% for your cards when you walk into the shop that are in business. How does that work? How does that work? There has to be, for a business to exist, there has to be a profit margin. Gary, I wanna go a little further. I'm not even done yet. I'm not even done yet, because there's a piece of this market that we are missing entirely. What's that? It's the thing we love and the thing we loathe, but it's a necessary relationship as dealers, and that's the repack space. If everyone's paying at 100%, because this was part of it, repackers were paying at 120%, because if you don't understand the math on it, they can pay at 100% on everything as long as they can charge 130, 150, 170% on the repack breaks. There is a service, there is a value in creating a chase type of product, allowing for that volatility, putting in floors and ceilings, and it's fractional. You mean they wanna get paid for the work they did? Yeah, but they gave me 100%. But here's what you don't realize, and this is true, and maybe it changes one day, but right now is not that time. They can't do this all on eBay. There are not enough of the right singles circulating on eBay for that to sustain the repackers. If this happened tomorrow, the dealers that are out looking for inventory quit going, scooping up cool cards, and bringing them every week to a place where repackers can walk and drop 200K on singles, drop 100K, drop three grand at a table. Obviously that's beneficial for us, so we wouldn't want that to go away, but if we weren't there, what happens to your repacks? And this is the ironic moment I realized. I'm ready. The reason we're in this whole mess is that this single value is propped up by the repack market in shows. Oh. We started saying a downtown is a 95% purchase, and everybody needs to do it. Somebody thought, well, that must translate everywhere, but if the dealers can't get margin, there's not cards at the show. If there's not cards at the show, repacks would be out of it. You think they have inventory for months. Let me tell you with a fact. They are weeks, sometimes days. They are scraping, whether they've got a hopping discord or not. Why do you think this consignment is such a fad right now? Well, and we have repackers that buy from us on a regular basis. And no joke, they will buy a card from me at 9 a.m. on a Saturday morning. And if I'm scrolling through Fanatics Live or whatnot, or TikTok later that night, I see that card in their repack that night. If you remove the possibility for dealers to make any kind of margin, then they can't buy cards. If they can't buy cards, there is an inventory. If there is an inventory, there isn't a repack market. If the repack market ceased to exist right now, everything you have at 100% just turned into 70, 60, or 50% of value because the money is not moving through the places where the cards are. Now let's talk about how that impacts the LCS. You don't have any money from selling your cards now. Yeah, so good luck. Now what happens to WAX? Like, these things all impact each other. So when something so dumb is said, and it's not just this one idiot, there's plenty of you out there, there is a mindset, and I'm an idiot too, right? I've had takes, I've invested in a Keno with the Reds heavily. I understand taking losses. And the sentiment of, if everybody just starts lowballing, that's bad for the market, I agree with that. I agree with that. But a sensible margin that's higher than any other collectibles industry on a repurchase is not that crazy. Yeah, and I think that one of the things that I will say I understand from people who make these kind of statements, a lot of times, it's people who set up at shows, or who spend a lot on WAX, and are trying to get some of that money back, who get very frustrated. But I want to focus in on the people who set up at shows here. If you find yourself falling into this camp that you feel like you're constantly... Getting low-balled and why can't people just pay my sticker or whatever else? There's two things that I would tell you One I understand the frustration to Nobody's forcing you to sell any of your cards to anyone Yeah, if you don't want to sell a card to somebody 80% tell them no here's the problem you have though, okay? Most of the people that I find who make these complaints are people who only have cards That anybody's ever really willing to pay 80% for you've got the same stuff as the next five tables walking down the line and You want a hundred dollars for the card that last sold for a hundred dollars and the guy next to you is happy to take 85 for it and the guy down from him might take 80 for it and the guy down from him ripped a blaster himself And he's in it for $35, and he's happy to take 60 for it You can eliminate some of those frustrations if you change your inventory you also May not be as liquid you can't get everything in any business, but at the end of the day if you are expecting Somebody who is reselling the product to pay a 100% for your cards You I don't know what where your brain is at go start your own business I firmly believe that this same principle applies just takes a little bit longer at 90% to It's not sustainable the math doesn't check out. No you can't you don't have a business We said this in an episode a year and a half ago There's one caveat I'm gonna say it because if somebody's gonna bring it up if you are moving in like the five-figure card space 90% you can do chances are you have already built a business where you have a massive network of buyers But that is that is that is a dual yeah And I would even go so far as to say that in that specific situation It doesn't even have to necessarily be the biggest cards It can be the most liquid stuff, but you better already have it sold when you buy it Remember back when I used to flip sneakers. I would have it sold at the Nike outlet Yeah before I ever checked out like it was checked off sold probably in terms of use a violation there So I don't know I don't do it anymore, so I don't care, but I moved a lot of money through goat Let me point out another thing too And this is not a knock on people that move big cards and film that content But I think the first thing I would tell you is being in a card business is not what you see on YouTube That's some of it But what you don't see is everything else you don't see when we buy a collection and it takes Three hours to move the box just to get the things out of top load Yeah, right like I don't think people realize that that labor that's involved with it But when you're watching these highlight videos of big card selling and if I was a content creator Would I show you the video of me buying this rare valuable card at 65 to 75 percent? Or am I gonna show you the one I really wanted and was willing to pay up to 90% for the sellers pump? Dabbing me up on the way out. Thank you so much guess which videos going up. These people are not only working on a 10% margin No, they're not they're not can't they aren't listen to me They are not running a business on 10% Margins it is not listen to me. It's not happening. It's not happening. It's not only not happening. It's not Possible, it's math. It's not possible math is math. Let's use a typical Mid-level like mid-sized card shop Most shops are gonna have if they're in an area that makes sense to be in what does that mean the demographics of the area? mean that there is enough Disposable income in the area for things like trading cards to be bought Let's say that they have rent for their space. It's probably gonna be in the five grand a month range Conservatively conservatively, let's say Let's just run the numbers with these five grand in rent I'm Personally gonna work there is the owner Six days a week. We're open six days out of seven days. I'm gonna be there six days, but I can't do everything by myself I've got one other full-time employee and then I've got a part-time person that maybe handles my eBay listings Okay And let's say that I want to be a boss that they actually like I don't have to worry about them stealing from me because I'm Not paying them enough. So let's say I'm paying them 20 bucks an hour, right? Okay one not a big-paying job One of them's full-time. So my rent is 60 grand a year at this point My full-time employee at 20 bucks an hour at 45 hours a week Is gonna cost me about 50 grand a year plus payroll taxes and everything else. So we'll call that 65 ish so now I'm to a hundred and twenty five thousand dollars a year, but on a monthly basis. I'm now to 12k My part-time employee is gonna cost me another 25 grand a year. So another two kids and I'm at fourteen thousand dollars Maybe I want to pay myself Equivalent to what I'm paying my employee. So now I'm at twenty one to twenty two thousand dollars a month and expenses Let's add internet. Let's add heating and cooling Security security insurance. So let's call it twenty five grand a month At a minimum and 5k would be a very reasonable price rent So I'm at twenty by not living in Ohio's like that's cheap. Yeah, I'm at twenty five grand a month before anything sells now some of you Back to not understanding how business works think well you sell 25 grand worth of cards No, no, no. No, no, if I'm at a 10% margin at a 10% margin gross margin, I Need to sell 280,000 Oh $300,000 worth of cards to break even on a monthly or a yearly on a monthly basis now That doesn't leave me anything left over to buy more inventory So you're saying like if I buy twenty five thousand dollars worth of cards for twenty five thousand dollars? Yeah, I'm twenty two fifty yeah, and then I sell them for twenty five I didn't do jack squat No, I have to lay three people off including myself. Uh-huh Shops need in my opinion at a minimum to be at a 30% gross margin In a perfect world. They should be at about 40% gross margin and even at that number with the numbers We just laid out $30,000 a month they need to be selling a hundred and ten thousand dollars a month worth of inventory Oh to break even now, let's talk about cash flow Sure on top of that now. We're focused in on the LCS right now, but about how much Credit is rolling through Wax purchasing monthly on again. It's a range. It depends. You're gonna be it's a smaller one, but it's a it's a direct account Let's say it's somebody in in fanatics prospect direct-to-counter status, which we're not gonna get into look it up the information's out there They're probably being asked by fanatics to spend somewhere between 30 and 50 grand a month on wax and A big portion out of stuff that nobody wants but they can't IOU and you can't send in some slabs as collateral and no if you're in the prospect program Depending on what your own personal credit is like you might get 30 days Once you graduate out of the prospect program to where you're expected to be spending more like 150 to 250 thousand dollars a month in Wax they'll give you in 90 days, but in principle They should be selling that for exactly what they paid for it, so then you don't make money there either Yeah, you know I think we've worn this out a little bit. Yeah, but the point is There's an ecosystem in any space Wholesaling must exist if you if you wash out any kind of margin You no longer have a labor force to manage any of this and a market will crash if there was nobody Working the industry Technology is not at the point yet, and these buybacks are creating different ways for warehousing PSA direct purchases all that kind of stuff Maybe repacking continues to take off and there's an online platform where everybody just submits it that way maybe that continues to happen But I have a hunch that if margins disappeared within a year the market would be devastated Oh for sure and and again one of the easiest ways to sum all of this up like we info dumped a little bit But it was we hopefully It gives a better understanding of what? Dealers deal with our expenses aren't anywhere near as high as an LCS is but we're going to a two-day show in another state this coming week and our expense base at our margins the first Three to four grand that we sell we break even Right so we got to be above that but this is very simple and Jason's heard me say this to customers who are trying to sell a whole collection or whatever else and This applies to all of you There does not exist a world where I do all the work, and you make all the money So back to the W or K to finish up If it really bothers you that much The people aren't giving you a hundred percent do the work do the work, and then you get a table demand it I wonder how long it would take just to price out your inventory. I know you don't want to I know you just want To wait for somebody say how much for that Then you pull out a phone only get about 50% of the sales because you weren't prepared But you know it's an option. You can give it a try I Think the reason this taps a nerve with us is because of the disbelief of the amount of work and the margins it takes To do what we're doing and we are not wealthy. I would love an employee Yeah, I would love somebody with it would certainly make you bail I would love to ramp this up. We can't afford that, but you know what we are honest We're honest if there's one thing that we've been from day one we have never lied We've been over critical of some people and had to backtrack we have been wrong about things But we've never been dishonest, and we're telling you the truth You cannot have this hobby be anything what it reason anything like it resembles today if margins do not exist for someone There needs to be wholesale somewhere somebody has to make money, or it doesn't make sense for it to exist And if and if the business I Use social media as an example if you're not paying for something you're the product so if a business is Facing paying you 90 to 95 percent Like a repacker understand and again. We are not anti repacker or anti dishonest repacker, but we are not anti repair No, it's a huge part of our business if if a if a buyer is paying you 95 to a hundred and ten percent You are the product. Yeah, you're the product this person brings me inventory Yes, you're the product because they know you're gonna pay a hundred and thirty percent of what they paid to get back into their brakes You're the product. Yeah, yeah Because I was well surmised. Yep. We got one last thing. I know we just ran it for a little while We're gonna take a deep breath good news. I'm in a bad mood still I'm gonna just turn and give all my it's not it's not a long ramp to my good friend Jason and his current Frustrations with the platform we all know and love I mean alright We've been over this guys if you haven't seen early in this year. I think it was January I did a video eBay standard envelope sucks. Just basically explaining why eBay standard envelope sucks I have I have been Actively a part of a high-volume a low-end store that I've been running over a year now close to 17,000 orders in that year. I'm not saying I'm the eBay expert I'm saying when people would say a high-volume low-end store They would look at those that number of sales and be like oh that person is doing that as a business, okay? I'm correct, so that's my perspective I also want to say this had four negative reviews in almost 17,000 orders three negative reviews And I've had four neutral feedback 99.9% When a power cell or two right I can't remember what they call it I don't do I don't do the return thing because there's a scam against that with a high blow and stuff so Probably not, but I am across the board metrics are great this last month I just ran my report because I told you guys it slowed down kind of out of nowhere And I do think in general Something we can maybe touch on next week is out of the summer into the fall Especially if you have a rough rookie class it seems like there's a bit of a softening in the market don't overreact to that I'm not we're still setting up at all of our shows We're still buying and selling cards, but the market responds to what's happening, and it seems to be a little bit softer So that's an impact, but I had two returns opened against me this last month One of them was a card that USPS just demolished it was a patch card It looked like the envelope had been folded in half because the creases around the patch were all running the exact same direction It was smashed or folded or whatever shipped at eBay standard envelope that is something that we're allowed to do It is supposed to be insured however if somebody just opens a return and doesn't do the claim as like didn't arrive arrived damage Or whatever sure it's a return I had another one that was pretty clearly a scam the card I scanned was in good shape the card that was received had Massive wrinkles all over it and the direction of the wrinkles would not have made sense with how it was shipped In both of those cases we're talking about a total of seven dollars including tax and purchases Would you refund it immediately correct immediately messaged me and I refunded them however both of them had opened up returns before I even had an Opportunity to respond they're probably used to bad service on eBay. They were frustrated. I have been there I get it, but here's where it gets really frustrating. I've had two returns out of the last 2984 orders That's a very small part as a point zero zero one percent According to eBay right now if you're logged into my dashboard under seller metrics. I am in a category of high returns amongst peers Which means according to eBay two returns out of? 2984 being open even though they were immediately resolved immediately refunded No negative feedback was left on them anything. They were happy. They just wanted it taken care of right Even the one that was scamming me. I'm pretty sure of that. I've seen it a few times I've learned you just take care of them apologize and move on My sales were down 1.6% this month. Throttled. Nothing else changed. All the other metrics are great. Everything else is still as it was. I don't have a high item not received rate. I have worked that down. It is in a healthy spot. I'm continuing to list items on a regular basis, if not daily. eBay, this costs you more money. It costs both of us more money to so harshly throttle a store. Now, here's what you'll hear. We don't do that. That doesn't happen. It's like whenever we used to work in a sales job. Yeah, just get gaslighted. Humans got to dispatch you to your calls. And when you have sales guys in service industry, they're calling and complaining, oh, I've been having such a rich day, I'm not gonna be able to pay my bills, blah, blah, blah. So people can give them a call that looks a little better maybe. This is the same thing. We're being gaslit by eBay. Oh no, it doesn't affect your metrics. 31% down, two returns, 3,000 orders. Why is everybody taking their eBay inventory and moving to whatnot? This is why. This is why. What's the conversation I'm actively having right now with you? Trying to decide whether it makes sense to just once or twice a week, instead of shipping on eBay and listing and everything, going and hopping on whatnot and running low end stuff. And just start peeling that off, moving my shipping out to like once every four or five days. Because what I've learned is the way through this, if I wanna fix it quickly is, I need to clear my schedule and I need to be running about five or 6,000 cards into my inventory every single day, hit a few hundred cars rolling in brand new stuff. It's gotta be more liquid players, this and that. I need to shorten my shipping timeframe. I need to follow up and ask for feedback, work for eBay, all this, just to get back to what's normal on a low end store. So I think if they don't fix this, you're gonna have more and more people like me that just decide, one, it's more financially beneficial not to put this effort in, because it's a lot of work. It's just not worth it. It's not worth the time. And two, it's less money for you. I understand at some point if there's bad customer service that needs to be addressed, but there's gotta be some type of thing in place of, hey, when this happens, this is probably the biggest question eBay's not asking. How did they handle the complaint? Is good service based off of incidents never happening? The problem, hold on now. Is good customer service based off of incidents never happening? Based off of how people respond to incidents when they do happen. Here's the issue. That requires a human to look at it and make a decision. Oh yeah. They don't want to pay humans to do that. It's much cheaper to have a computer and AI do that. So once again, I mean, I think this is like the second or third thing like this this year. And at some point when you're scaling out the business, you're like, I have 50,000 cards on there. They're just gonna randomly cut, I mean, 30%, that's a, you know. It's a chunk. That's a chunk of change. If your margins are running at 30%. And you run tight margins. Yeah. Yep, so it is what it is, low and liquid. This is just me venting to the rest of you that do the same things. I know you deal with the same stuff at times too. Just another thing that doesn't make sense on eBay for people selling high volume, low end. And maybe what's gonna happen is, you know, the AI software comes out, the scanners come out. Everybody loves it. They go nuts. Market probably gets a little flooded. Maybe there's too much of this stuff on there. Not as much interest. Maybe the market's slowing down. But what I can tell you is this. Here's where my metrics were. And they were in the same ballpark every month leading up to September. I have two returns happen. Both of them immediately addressed. Even the dialogue, they're like, yes, it must have been USPS. I'm sorry for you too. I said, well, the right thing to do here is to take care of you. It's been handled the right way. They're happy customers. They've been taken care of. And I am losing 30% off of $7 out of almost 3,000 orders. Craziness. And if this felt like an episode where we were bitching and moaning, guess what? It was. You need that right now. Hopefully those of you who needed to hear some of that to understand, come away with a little bit better understanding of what it's like to actually try to do this as a business and why you are getting the offers you're getting for your cards. For those of you who are loyal listeners of the podcast and viewers of the podcast who sit on the same side of the table that we do, hopefully you got some validation for some of the frustration that you feel from these same things too. If you've enjoyed the podcast this week or anytime you've watched it and you haven't done it yet, hit that subscribe button, hit that like button, hit that little bell button. If you're listening to us on audio, throw us in your RSS feed. Make sure every Thursday night you join us on Whatnot at 6 p.m. We run cool stuff and we don't yell at you. And it's fun for about three hours. May have some more fun stuff coming in that direction soon. This has been yet another episode of the Ball Card Show. Can I give homework? Yeah, you can give homework. Two things real quick in context of our big conversation. One, if you've been buying and you hear this and you're like, that's the frustration. I just am not getting the margin. I'm doing everything else right. This week, knock it down 5%. Whatever it is, if you're 90, go to 85. If you're 85, go to 80. I mean, 60% to 70%, you're dabbling there in a world that you're probably not gonna be very successful with. But push yourself to try and just see what happens. The loudest people are not the majority in this situation usually. Most people understand how basic business works. Secondly, if you're somebody that's still here and you're frustrated with us, which would be a surprise to me, I would really encourage you, when you're getting those 90 to 95% offers, actually look up the card and look at all of the recent comps. Look at five, three, whatever's available. And ask yourself, am I getting 90% of this card's value or am I getting 90% of the lowest possible comp somebody can find? And I'm gonna guess that you're gonna be a little bit frustrated and disappointed most of the time. Although there are people out there, when you got the right stuff, it doesn't matter, they're paying up for it. This has been the Ball Card Show, The Esports Podcast. For The Esports Collector. Bye now. Peace.